Water Redistribution - Learnings from China

Many of us would be quite aware of the 'Indian Rivers Inter-Link' [1] project which was proposed in 2005. This is a very large scale project that intends to interlink Indian rivers by a network of canals so as to reduce floods in certain zones of the nation while alleviating the water shortage problem in others. It seems like quite a reasonable thing to do and the government has been in the process of surveying the zones and estimating costs and benefits since 9 years now. There are environmental and relocation issues that the officials have foreseen and will look to address if the project goes ahead, which, judging by its current state seems to be the case. But these are predictions and all international comparisons that have been done so far are with similar projects in the West, where social and economic situations are very different from those in India. 

But now, an opportunity for comparison with a similar project in a nation whose conditions are very similar to those of India has presented itself. China has finished constructing a canal more than 1200 km in length from Danjiangkou Dam in the central province of Hubei to the capital, Beijing [2]. The issues they faced were similar, heavy concentration of industries and agricultural lands near the economy-driving capital area had depleted and polluted the water naturally available in the region and so the only solution they could conjure up was to 'borrow' from the water abundant South. And just like India's Inter-Link project, this seemed like a prudent thing to do and so, being China, they quickly did it.

The Economist [3], however, has a very interesting take on the project and points out secondary and tertiary impacts that make the project seem far less prudent. They say that while the canal will solve the current problem and meet a significant proportion of the demand, this portion will quickly shrink over time with an accelerated increase in population, number of industries and farmlands, spurred by the canal. Additionally, the article mentions "By lubricating further water-intensive growth the current project may even end up exacerbating water stress in the north". And this argument seems largely valid. When there is abundant supply of a commodity, its value decreases and people tend to use more of it, rather carelessly. Moreover, shifting billions of cubic metres of water may stimulate the spread of diseases which is something that even might not have been considered during the planning process. 

They point out the real issue: the high demand for water and inefficient use of it. And this problems only gets exacerbated by the 'solution'. Agreed, that some amount of redistribution will have to happen to address the problem in areas that face acute shortage. But a more enduring solution would be controlled tapping of sustainable local resources and promotion of efficient utilisation techniques. Also, the government shouldn't hesitate in charging high tariffs from the industrial users of the redistributed water. This case also highlights a very interesting aspect of project conception/appraisal: sometimes projects are not the solution and therefore, unneeded and the appraisers should feel comfortable accepting that.  

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Rivers_Inter-link

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South%E2%80%93North_Water_Transfer_Project

[3] http://www.economist.com/news/china/21620226-worlds-biggest-water-diversion-project-will-do-little-alleviate-water-scarcity-canal-too

Ministers handing out infrastructure projects to please voters

On 11th August 2014, there was a news article in the Economic Times titled "Akin to railways, aviation ministers handing out airport projects to please voters" [1]. I found this interesting since this brings out the influence of politics on infrastructure projects, an aspect that is often overlooked and overpowered by financial and technical perspectives in discussions about projects. 

The articles mentioned that "Andhra Pradesh is the new focus area for the civil aviation ministry which, with a politician from the state heading it, has set the wheels in motion to develop three international airports in the state, including one to be built from scratch." I wouldn't so much focus on the particular state or minister as much as I'd like to focus on the fact that many a times, projects are unnecessarily taken up to please voters.  In this particular case, the three airports that are slated to be given international status are Tirupati, Vijayawada and Vishakhapatnam, with the former two being upgradation projects and the last being an entirely new development. 

All three of these cities face shortages of basic amenities [2] [3] and the capital and expertise invested in the construction of airports could have been channeled to tackle these fundamental problems rather than using them to construct international airports, which, in fact are not even needed. With the national carrier Air India operating out of its hubs in T3 Indira Gandhi International Airport, New Delhi and T2 Chattrapati Shivaji International Airport, Mumbai [4], what every other city needs to have is a domestic airport of international standards instead of having an international airport that is underutilised. Moreover, the presence of an international airport in the state at Hyderabad further renders the development of more airports unnecessary. A passenger travelling to the US or Europe is typically taken to one of the hubs and then flown out of the country. For short distance flights to the Middle-East or the Far-East, mid sized international airports of Hyderabad, Chennai, Bangalore etc. are more than capable of handling the present and future traffic volumes. 

A classic case of how underutilised these projects become is the Raja Bhoj airport in Bhopal, the city where I hail from, that was upgraded to handle international air traffic in 2011 but the only international flights that are operated out of the airport are the seasonal Hajj flights operated by Saudia, Bhopal being a city with a considerable Muslim population. The upgrade did instill a sense of pride among the residents of Bhopal when it happened but now it is felt that maybe those funds could have been used to speed up the implementation of the Bhopal Bus Rapid Transit System or the Narmada Pipeline which address much more fundamental issues that the city faces. 

It is obvious that these projects are taken up by politicians to please the voters in their constituency because of the mileage that association with terms such as 'international' generate. It would be interesting to see what becomes of these airports over the next few years since quite clearly, these aren't well thought out projects aimed at developmental or social gains as much as they are aimed at ensuring the continuation of political reigns. 

1. [1] http://goo.gl/JrMTf6
2. [2] http://goo.gl/DI6wuu
3. [3] http://goo.gl/wHWGWC
4. [4] http://goo.gl/QiIxm8

Age- an important factor for Infrastructure

I came across this YouTube video from Patrick Schwerdtfeger which highlights one important factor of infrastructure- Age:

For me, the take-home messages were-

1. 'New Infrastructure lubricates the wheels of business'
2. 'Think bigger about your business, think bigger about your life', 'Bank on countries investing heavily in infrastructure'- Other factors being constant, it would be better to bank on the growth of countries that are investing in new infrastructure. This was also supported by the following GDP comparison between India and China on equitymaster.com. Though India and China had similar growth rates in the 90s, China has been one of the leading investor in infrastructure ever since. Here are some of its futuristic projects.                                             
3. Aging infrastructure can not only stagnate but even slow down business and reduces GDP.

Another example from a few days back which highlights the importance of the need of regularly upgrading infrastructure was the termination of the telegraph service by the Government of India. I was home at the time and didn't give it much thought but now that I reconsider the event, I think that telegraph about 20 years ago was as important to people as email is to us now. Though people might have sentiments attached to them but society has to move on- using telegram as a means of communication today simply seems ludicrous.

Another aspect of the 'age' dimension would be being too futuristic. As an example, maybe 10 years from now 3-D printing might be available at every nook and corner just like a photostat machine. But investing in it today may not actually bear fruit. A real example is that of Facebook's mobile app- they banked heavily on HTML5 but a low adoption rate by browsers and operating systems lead to poor user experience (one might say that the technical community was just not ready for it at that time even though they might be today).
This is like building a high capacity highway to an area which has not yet started developing.

Thus, I would like to add a 7th dimension to our list of characteristics of a good infrastructure project- 'relevance over time'. Even a project that is not relevant may be made for public use, may lead to economic development in the future, may provide services, may serve as a network on which other services may be integrated and may even lead to lifestyle optimization in the future but unless it is immediately relevant, it will end up being of little use.

What is infrastructure- a physical perspective

Today's discussion on how do we define infrastructure and infrastructure projects and the 6 parameters we look for (Public use, Economic development, capital assets, Network/System, Lifestyle optimization, Service) in infrastructure made me want to dig a bit deeper into what this meant in real life- what array of projects did it actually encompass.

For an Indian perspective, it is easy for us to come up with examples such as a well connected metro system, an intelligent transportation system, drinking water in pipelines and several others discussed in class.

But this, to me, sounded like a rudimentary understanding highly biased to the Indian context and developing nations in general.

I started looking for examples from places quite different from the Indian sub-continent and came up with two such examples, one from Nairobi, the capital of Kenya and the other from Pennsylvania, USA.

Here they are in a bit more detail-

1. Kibera is a slum in Nairobi with over 200,000 (estimates have also placed it at close to 500,000) inhabitants spanning 13 villages and 2.5 square kilometers. The attached video shows how Open Street Maps, a Volunteered Geographic Information platform helped in defining the area of Kibera and hence forcing the government to recognize this informal settlement (watch before proceeding).

On watching this video, two things immediately stood out for me-

1. Though the people were as backward as they get and skeptical in the beginning, once they realized that the mapping exercise was only directed only towards their welfare, public participation was effectively mobilized.
2. Technology was able to map the area with quite a level of detail at a high rate (3 weeks sounds impressive). It provided the people the ability to navigate, a fundamental and very important aspect of infrastructure, one which most of us take for granted today.

Once the area was mapped out, the facets of an infrastructure project were easily visible- public use, safety, economic development, lifestyle optimization and more. So simple navigation and mapping should also comprise an infrastructure project(?)

2. Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, USA-
Here is an example from a region with an advanced network of roads, water and sanitation, medical care, social infrastructure etc. A completely different definition of an infrastructure project is shown by this example.
Sustainability is one of the chief concerns of today's development. UPS Drivers is a company that hires 60000 drivers. If technology helps them save 1 mile per driver per day, they end up saving 20 million miles a year, 2 million gallons of fuel, 20,000 metric tonnes of carbon into the air and a lot of worn-out tires.
Here is a video in this context-

Even though the company itself is a privately owned MNC, their investment into research for smarter mobilization of resources should give it the title of an infrastructure company.

After watching these examples(and others), there are a few possible conclusions that I have drawn-

1. Infrastructure planning in the future is going to be a much more involved process with a lot of public participation. With growing social media such as Flickr and FourSquare, it has become possible to get answers to questions such as 'Which is the most happening place in the city on a Saturday night?' or 'How do tourists explore a city and how is it different from local people on a vacation? How can we improve their experience based on how the city talks back to us?'
2. Technology is going to be a big driving force in the development of infrastructure
3. Infrastructure is going to develop a 'soft' component (will social media platforms also form a part of infrastructure?). In addition to being 'soft', it is also likely to be interactive with technologies such as Google glass.
4. The 'hard' component of infrastructure will undoubtedly continue but will be more efficient based on the feedback from the 'soft' component.
5. If introduced appropriately to the under-developed areas, technology will lead to a growth rate which will be higher than ever before.

For me, exploring several example of infrastructure drove home to point of infrastructure being a service rather than a physical entity. Will love to hear a lot more views on this!

Rs 3.5 bn for Delhi's infrastructure ahead of Commonwealth games

I think it will be interesting to see how the infrastructure of Delhi is geared up for the Commonwealth games. With our national pride at stake, given the grandeur with which China put up their Olympics, it is an extremely important event for the country and the government seems to have realized this. Here's a small article on Economic Times: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/economy/infrastructure/Rs-35-bn-for-Delhis-infrastructure-ahead-of-Commonwealth-games/articleshow/5153640.cms

We have spoken about political will at many points in the course. A stimulus like the Commonwealth games forces the country to develop infrastructure on a fast-track basis. The SAF Games in Chennai, for instance, triggered rapid infrastructure development. After the games, the residential facilities built for the sportspersons were converted into housing facility for government employees, and the swimming pool, etc. are open to the public for use.

On the one hand, while the government imposes on itself deadlines like Sonia Gandhi's birthday, I think hosting such events of international importance could be a potential area for fast-track world class infrastructure development in urban cities.